Does Scripture require a global Flood?
by John D. Morris
Until fairly modern times, people in Western countries have basically believed that
the Bible was God’s Word, and, by and large, believed what it said.
This was certainly true for views of ancient history, with the majority of both
scientists and theologians believing in a literal creation, the Fall, and the Flood.
Now, however, the tables have turned. Christians are hard-pressed to find a denomination,
seminary, or even a church, which holds to a consistently literal view of Genesis.
Many Christian ‘scholars’ consider such a stand to be ‘unscholarly’, and rush to
reinterpret Genesis to agree with secular scientific views.
Historically, this compromise started in the early 1800s, with the denial of the
global Flood. But this doctrine doesn’t stand by itself. If the Flood did not cover
the world, then it did not lay down the world’s sedimentary rock, and therefore
this rock must have been laid down slowly over long periods of time.
Thus the biblical doctrine of the young earth was abandoned. The fossils in these
‘old’ sediments seemingly could only be interpreted as having lived over the same
vast ages, and these creatures could not have been created in the way Genesis records.
Thus the biblical doctrine of creation died. The trickle-down effect continues today,
with more and more doctrines being denied or re-stated.
But there is hardly a doctrine in the Bible more clearly stated than that of the
global Flood. In chapters
6-10 of Genesis, the words and phrases used to describe the Flood can be
interpreted in no other legitimate way.
Of course, some of the words, such as ‘all flesh died’
(7:21) might be interpreted as meaning all living things within the local area,
as some modern ‘scholars’ claim. But when a word can have more than one meaning,
the context must define its true meaning. And in Genesis 6-10, the context is one
of a global Flood! More than 30 times, words and phrases of global scope
appear. In each case, the primary meaning is one of totality, but when they are
all together, the meaning is crystal clear.
Compare this clear teaching with the teachings of Christ and the New Testament writers,
and the conclusion is inescapable. Trying to salvage the local flood idea makes
nonsense out of New Testament doctrine.
For example: the local flood theory logically implies that the Indians in North
America, the natives in Africa, the Scandinavians, the Chinese, etc., were not
affected by the Flood. They escaped God’s judgment on sin. If so, what could Christ
possibly have meant when He likened the coming judgment of all men to the
judgment of ‘all’ men (Matthew
24:37–79) in the days of Noah? A partial judgment in Noah’s day means a
partial judgment to come. Scripture does not stand if the Flood was not global.
The time has come for Christian ‘scholars’ to swallow their intellectual pride and
return to a belief in the Bible—all of it. How much better it is to receive
the approval of our Lord than that of secular colleagues.
When Christians come back to the truth of the Bible, they not only will find it
doctrinally whole, they will find it scientifically satisfying—far more
scientific than the secular view with which they now compromise.
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